Rome’s most famous landmark, the Colosseum, will be lit up in red on Saturday as a sign of solidarity with all those who are persecuted for their faith.The event, which takes place at 6pm on the 24th, is the initiative of Aid to the Church in Need, the Pontifical Foundation that supports suffering Christians in over 140 countries around the world.At the same time, in Syria, the Maronite Cathedral of St Elijah in war torn Aleppo and St Paul’s church in the Iraqi city of Mosul will also be illuminated in red, symbolising the blood of the many recent Christian martyrs there.The Rome event will include testimonies of two families who have been targeted for their Christian faith: the husband and youngest daughter of Asia Bibi from Pakistan, who received a death sentence in 2010, and Nigerian Rebecca Bitrus who spent two years as a hostage to the extremist group Boko Haram.Asia’s daughter, Eisham Ashiq, told me the family believes she will be released from jail soon, though they will have to leave Pakistan immediately, as her safety cannot be guaranteed. They appeal to the president to grant her a pardon and they hope to meet with Pope Francis on Saturday to ask him to pray for her freedom.Rebecca Bitrus told me that despite her ordeal at the hands of Boko Haram, she never lost her trust in God. Not even when her one-year-old son was killed, or when she was tortured and raped, resulting in the birth of another child. When she finally managed to escape, she says many people urged her to get rid of the child, but with the help of local Church leaders she has learnt to accept, and even to love, the son of her captors. She urges other women held hostage in Nigeria to continue trusting in the Lord and she wants to ask Pope Francis if it’s possible to truly forgive those who cause so much pain and suffering.2000 years ago, Christians were tortured and killed in the Colosseum for refusing to renounce their faith. In many countries around the world, that practice continues today, with over 3.000 Christian martyrs killed in 2017 alone. While their stories rarely make news headlines, organisers hope this event will make their voices heard and end the indifference that surrounds their plight.

Judges have real and huge power. Unlike heads of states and parliamentarians, they are not elected by anyone, which provides a solid ground for manipulation. Poland, which decided to limit judicial power, is being punished by the EU.

Courts have been turned into leverage for destruction of national democracies by the totalitarian system

In late December, the European Commission announced punitive measures against Poland using the so-called “nuclear option”, Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty. The reason was the decision of Warsaw to limit the power of judges. The EU considered this an infringement on "freedom, democracy and the rule of law".

In fact, the "nuclear option" of the EU has no relation to freedom, democracy, or the rule of law. Its goal is to establish a totalitarian supranational system in Poland, the leading country of the Visegrad Fronde, in order to supersede democratic national institutions of power.

The judicial system in a democratic state should guard rights of citizens. Together with the executive and legislative powers, it must guarantee "the enjoyment of life and liberty" of free citizens (The Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776), or according to Jeremy Bentham, the founder of British utilitarianism, ensure "the greatest happiness of the greatest number".

The problem is that judges have real and huge power. However unlike heads of states, governments and parliamentarians, they are not elected by anyone, which provides a solid ground for manipulation.

Today, the judicial system has turned into a disgusting parody of itself; supported by politicians, Academia, media and NGOs, it is now a powerful lever used by prominent people to promote the ideology of political correctness and multiculturalism.

The goal of this ideology is ethnic and cultural substitution and, as a consequence, Islamization. It is not actively displayed, although it is not concealed.

In 2001, the former French Interior Minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement called for integration of 75 million migrants from Africa and Asia within 50 years.

In July 2008, the Chief Justice of England and Wales Lord Phillips declared that it was inevitable to recognize Sharia courts in Great Britain.In September 2015, at the peak of the crisis with migrants, the journalist Ralf Schuler ("Bild") reported the EU was planning to receive additional 5 million refugees from Asia and Africa.In September 2017, the EU financed the exhibition in Brussels called "Islam, It's Also Our History!". According to Isabelle Benoit, a historian from the Tempora organization, “We want to make it clear to Europeans that Islam is a part of our civilization”.On February 22, President of France Emmanuel Macron said: “French culture does not exist. There is a culture in France and it is diverse… French art? I have never seen it!”.

According to Finance Minister of Germany Wolfgang Schäuble, Germans need to learn humanistic values of Islam, and Islam is “a constituent part of Germany”.

This aim is realized in three stages.

Stage one - corruption of society, impo‎sition of barbarous archaic customs, destruction of the national culture, eradication of Judeo-Christian values.

Stage two - support of Islamic occupation and migrant violence, legalization of the Sharia.

Stage three - suppression of dissent at all levels.

It is obvious that a healthy and cohesive society would resist turning it into slavery. Therefore it is necessary to undermine its foundations, to swap values: virtue should be presented as evil, barbarity - as cultural originality, abnormality - as the norm. Courts are the main leverage in this game. Below are some of the examples of this phenomenon.

In February 2007, a German court released the former member of The Red Army Faction (RAF) Brigitte Mohnhaupt, who had murdered 9 people in 1970s. She didn’t express any regret for her crimes.In July 2017, The National Health Service (NHS) reported 5391 cases of female genital mutilations. Although this disgusting procedure was banned in the UK in 1985, not a single person was convicted.

This is only a marginal part of thousands of similar verdicts, which under the guise of humanism and human rights impose chaos and all kinds of perversions.

On the other hand, Christian values are also being consistently destroyed.

When the foundation of the society is undermined, the second stage of destruction begins.In the Rule of Law, laws should be applied to all citizens - otherwise the very idea of democracy and justice loses its meaning.

During the period of 1999 to 2001, two teenage girls from Fontenay-sous-Bois (outside Paris) were gang-raped by 14 Muslim teenagers. Ten of the rapists were acquitted, two persons were sentenced to only one year in prison, one person was sentenced to six months in prison, and the last one out of 14 was charged with a suspended sentence.In January 2006, a French Jew, Ilan Halimi, was kidnapped by a gang calling themselves "Barbarians,” headed by Yusuf Fofana. They tortured him, doused with gasoline and burned alive. 24 members of the gang were sentenced to terms between 6 months to 18 years only. Two "Barbarians" were freed.In May 2016, at the school of Lund (Sweden) a Muslim migrant teen raped a 14-year-old girl. The girl was transferred, but the rapist remained at the same school. He was only punished with 100 hours of detention.In October 2016, the Gothenburg District Court sentenced a migrant Abdul to 10 months of youth care (only!) for raping of a 14-year-old girl, but Supreme Court of Western Sweden abrogated Abdul because he suffered from ADHD syndrome and "didn’t understand no”.In July 2017, Malmö District Court sentenced a 19-year-old Afghan Muslim migrant to one month in prison for raping of a 13-year-old boy. And so on.

According to official statistics, only every fifth migrant rapist in Sweden (and only 13 percent of migrant pedophiles) are deported to their home countries - Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia or Iraq.

This is not characteristic of Sweden in particularly. In December 2016 in Vienna, 20-year-old Amir from Iraq raped a 10-year-old boy in a toilet of a swimming pool. The District Court sentenced him to six years, but the Austrian Supreme Court overturned it "for lack of evidence."Pakistani members of Rochdale child sex abuse ring (with the exception of their leader Shabir Ahmed) were sentenced to ridiculous terms from 4 to 9 years.

In 2014, a 40-year-old preacher Suleman Maknojioa was accused of harassing an 11-year-old girl. He was sentenced to 40 weeks' imprisonment only, but did not stay in prison a single day as he was the only breadwinner.In Germany in January 2017, a 47-year-old Syrian migrant was sentenced to one year and 9 months of imprisonment only for raping a mentally disabled woman – “because when he is drunk, he is unpredictable”. By that time he committed 23 various offenses, including assault, robbery and fare evasion.There are hundreds of similar examples…In June this year, three underage Muslim migrants severely raped a 5-year-old girl in Idaho. In the court room their lawyers advocated that the so called “boys” were decent and trustworthy and they suffered from Post Traumatic Stress (PTSD).In April 2012, for the sake of "Freedom of ex‎pression" the Spanish Supreme Court freed 9 Islamists who were planning terrorist attacks in the name of "liberation of Spain".

The Western legal system openly sabotages decisions of the executive and legislative branches of power.The best evidence of this is courts blocking Trump’s ban on the reception of migrants from Middle East. This has nothing to do with humanism, since those who need help most of all, are deprived of it. It’s not only about Christians and Yazidis.

In Israel, the High Court of Justice deliberately replaces the executive branch: it prevents destruction of houses of terrorists and deportation of terrorists, cooperates with left NGO to demolish Jewish houses, and blocks deportation of illegal African migrants to third countries.

EU laws literally ensure safety for terrorists. Imam Abdelbaki Es Satty, who organized a terrorist attack in Barcelona, was brought to trial on drug business charges in 2014, but Judge Pablo de la Rubia dismissed his deportation, as it was deemed a violation of EU laws.

In August 2012, two Al-Qaeda terrorists, one of whom plotted to kill thousands of people in a bomb attack in a British shopping center, applied to the European Court of Human Rights against MI5. Officials at the European Court allowed their application to go ahead.The European Court of Human Rights and the British Court of Appeal didn’t deport Abu Qatad, Palestinian Al-Qaeda activist, to the Hashemite Kingdom for 10 years because of “humanitarian considerations.”

The third stage is elimination of dissenters of any age and social status.

Stalin asserted that repression should be based on laws, and indeed Stalin’s terror was based on the progressive Stalinist Constitution of 1936. The legislation of Western countries, which is quite liberal, opens limitless possibilities for justice.

The French pioneered the path to Muslim colonization. The starting point on the way to ethnic and cultural substitution, according to Eric Zemmur, was the Pleven law on racism (1972), which was then supplemented with even more radical laws.

Germany went even further by deciding to set censorship - fines of up to $56,000,000 for "hate speech" in order to protect freedom of speech, according ex-Justice Minister Heiko Maas.

The last major and successful case was the deprivation of the parliamentary immunity of Marin Le Pen by the French prosecutor's office after she published images of ISIS atrocities in Twitter.

The Swedish prosecutor's office accused Peter Springare, a police officer from Orebro, of spreading hatred and racism. All he did was listing police reports compiled in one week and naming criminals and countries of their origin.Aboriginals are defenseless in the face of their colonial barbarians, because the judicial system sides with the latter always and everywhere.

A mere suspicion of Islamophobia can cause fatal consequences.In 2016, 35-year-old Kevin Crehan made a joke by leaving a half-eaten sandwich with bacon on the doorstep of a mosque in Bristol. He was accused of racist attack, sentenced to one year in prison and died there under strange circumstances.

Any doubt on the purity of Islam is ruthlessly punished. In August 2017, the German journalist Michael Stürzenberger was sentenced to a half-year in prison after posting of a photo on Facebook where a ranking Nazi was shaking hands with Amin al-Husseini - the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.No totalitarian system is ready to tolerate heretics within its realm. That’s why it hates Trump so much. That’s why it strives to undermine Israel, defames Victor Orban and seeks to bring Poland to its knees – because of its striving for sovereignty and national democracy.

town bordering Iraq], the last bastion of ISIS [the self-proclaimed Islamic

State extremist group], I am declaring the end of this evil and cursed organization.” Suleimani’s letter goes on to express gratitude to “Iranian,

Iraqi, Syrian, Lebanese, Afghan, and Pakistani guardians of the shrine”—

Islamic Republic lingo for Shia foreign fighters in Syria—who sacrifice their lives defending the “life and honor of Muslims.” Responding to Suleimani’s letter, Khamenei too offered thanks to “holy warrior brethren from Iraq, Syria, and others,” and congratulated them on their victory.

Since January 2012, almost the same nationalities have provided the bulk of Shia foreign fighters under Suleimani’s command in Syria and Iraq. Based on a meticulous reading of press reports of funeral services held in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon for Shia foreign fighters killed in Syria and Iraq, 535 Iranian nationals were killed in combat in Syria between January 2012 and January 2018. In comparison, at least 841 Afghan, 112 Iraqi, 1,213 Lebanese, and 153 Pakistani Shia foreign fighters were killed fighting in Syria during the same period (see figure 1).1

In Iraq, this author only registered 3 Shia Pakistani nationals and 42 Iranian nationals killed in combat between March 2013 and January 2018. During the same period, a minimum 2,433 Shia Iraqi nationals were killed in that country.

These numbers must of course be treated as the absolute minimum that can be documented using open-source information, and the real numbers may be somewhat higher. The real Iraqi numbers are doubtlessly significantly higher, and are gradually released to the public as Iraqi authorities get a better grasp on the magnitude of their losses.

Regardless of the exact scale of the losses, closer scrutiny of Iran’s Shia foreign legions offers a fuller picture of who they are, how Tehran uses them to further its strategic interests, and what the limits to their usefulness are.

Lebanese Hezbollah

Chief and oldest among the Islamic Republic’s Shia foreign legions is Hezbollah, which has become the most powerful political actor in Lebanon and the most formidable military force in the Levant. Hezbollah is also the Iranian ally with the highest total number of combat fatalities in Syria. At a minimum, 1,213 Hezbollah fighters, including 75 officers, have been killed in combat in Syria since the first was killed on September 30, 2012.

Hezbollah’s leadership initially dismissed reports that it had a military presence in Syria. Given that its raison d’être has always been resistance against Israel, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah naturally had difficulties explaining why it was fighting fellow Arabs in Syria on Iran’s behalf. But as funeral services in Lebanon for Hezbollah fighters received greater press coverage, the militia and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad came to embrace Hezbollah’s military presence in Syria.

Tehran initially preferred to deploy Hezbollah forces—rather than Iranian forces—in Syria. A comparison of the dates when Iranian and Lebanese nationals were killed in combat in Syria further suggests that Hezbollah fighters were not fighting under Iranian command, and instead operated independently of the Quds Force (see figure 2).

Hezbollah’s high mortality rate in Syria forced Tehran to deploy the IRGC and quickly assemble additional Shia militias, allowing Hezbollah to maintain a sizable domestic presence in Lebanon. A significant weakening of Hezbollah forces could tempt rival Lebanese militias to challenge their dominance. Hezbollah also faces formidable challenges on its southern flank: the Israeli Air Force has on several occasions bombed arms transports from Syria to Lebanon, and it cannot disregard the risk that the Israel Defense Forces will take advantage of Hezbollah’s engagement in the Syrian civil war to attack the militia’s positions in Lebanon. This risk only increases as Hezbollah expands its arsenal and Israel feels further threatened.

The preservation of the Assad regime demonstrates Hezbollah’s capacity as a formidable Iranian proxy. But the tenuous balance of power in Lebanon, Hezbollah’s inherent vulnerabilities to Israel, and the need for larger-scale deployments of IRGC and allied Shia militias in Syria reflect the limits of Hezbollah’s capabilities.

The Afghan Fatemiyoun Division

With 841 combat fatalities since the first on August 23, 2013, the Afghan Fatemiyoun Division has suffered the second-largest number of losses in Syria among Tehran’s Shia foreign legions. According to the official Islamic Republic historiography, reflected in the Kayhan newspaper,the Fatemiyoun Division was established by Ali-Reza Tavassoli and twenty-five of his friends. They volunteered to fight in Syria to protect the Sayyida Zaynab Mosque—a prominent Shia pilgrimage site in the suburbs of Damascus. Kayhan further claims that Tavassoli managed to mobilize about 5,000 Shia Afghan nationals who were already residents of Damascus.Kayhan’saccount is false. Tavassoli moved to Iran in 1984 to join the Abouzar Brigade, which was the Afghan branch of the IRGC’s Office of Liberation Movements (Daftar-e Nehzatha-ye Rahaei-Bakhsh)—a precursor of the Quds Force. After the end of the war with Iraq, Tavassoli spent some time in Afghanistan fighting against the Taliban in the 1990s and was in Lebanon during the 2006 war. There is, however, no evidence that Tavassoli resided permanently in Afghanistan, let alone mobilized Afghan nationals for the war effort in Syria.

Apart from this, all slain Shia Afghan fighters are buried in Iran. This suggests the IRGC recruited them in exchange for permanent residence permits and Iranian citizenship for their familiesKayhan’s claim that the Fatemiyoun Division operates independently from Iranian forces is also false. The Fatemiyoun Division is an integral part of the IRGC Quds Force. This is demonstrated by the fact that there are Quds Force officers, including midlevel commanders, among the Fatemiyoun losses.The Islamic Republic’s ability to mobilize a significant Shia Afghan force to fight in Syria may allow Tehran to one day employ these same forces to further its interests in Afghanistan. But the Fatemiyoun Division’s disproportionately high casualties and reliance on Iranian midlevel commanders reflect its limited usefulness for Tehran.

The Pakistani Zeinabiyoun Brigade

Little is known about the Shia Pakistani Zeinabiyoun Brigade, which has reportedly suffered 153 combat fatalities in Syria and three in Iraq. Hiding from the prying eyes of Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence, this militia avoids the limelight. According to a Fars News Agency background article from July 24, 2016, this militia was formed not so much because of the civil war in Syria, but in the wake of systematic persecution of the Shia minority in Pakistan.The July 23, 2016, issue of Panjereh weekly, which is no longer available to the public but was posted online by Martyr Rahimi International Institute on March 3, 2017, expanded on the Fars News report. In an interview, a man called Abbas, reportedly the chief Zeinabiyoun commander Seyed Abbas Mousavi, claimed that Pakistani Shia have been in touch with the IRGC Quds Force “for almost fifteen years.” That puts the beginning of the relationship around the time of the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and the collapse of Taliban rule. Abbas further claimed that the Pakistani Shia wrote a letter to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei asking for his opinion concerning their participation in the war in Syria, to which Khamenei orally responded: “Whoever is capable of performing duty, should do it to the best of his ability.”However, al-Mustafa University in Qom, Iran, seems to be the real recruiting ground for Pakistani Shia fighters. This author has identified several Shia Pakistani graduates from this particular university among the Zeinabiyoun fatalities in Syria.That said, the relatively low number of Zeinabiyoun combat fatalities in Syria is an indicator of the small size of the militia in comparison with other Shia militias and its limited usefulness in Iran’s regional power projection.

Shia Iraqi Militias

The Islamic Republic’s support for Iraqi Shia militias dates back to the 1979 revolution and Tehran’s creation of the Badr Corps of the IRGC, composed of Iraqi refugees and prisoners of war. Ever since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Tehran has ostensibly sought to encourage Iraqi Shia unity, but Iran simultaneously encourages and contributes to the formation of numerous Shia militia groups in Iraq.
While most of these armed groups are now formally organized under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Forces (al-Hashd al-Shaabi), they have remained independent entities outside the control of the civilian government in Baghdad. The rivalry between Iraqi Shia may not necessarily be detrimental to Tehran’s agenda. Lack of unity between Iraqi Shia has provided the Islamic Republic with ample opportunities to shape Iraqi politics. This also makes Iran’s Qassem Suleimani a central player in Iraqi politics, and the authority to whom Iraqi Shia militiamen defer.
Apart from their significant casualties in Iraq—the real magnitude of which remains unclear—the Iraqi Shia seem to have suffered very few losses in Syria. The relatively low number suggests their combat participation in the Syrian civil war primarily serves political propaganda rather than military purposes. It not only communicates the message of transnational Shia solidarity under Tehran’s guidance, but also sends a message that the IRGC and its proxies can simultaneously engage in combat operations in two different theaters of war—Iraq and Syria—and have been doing so since 2015.

Iran’s Shia Foreign Legions Shape the Strategic Environment

Almost four decades after the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the regime in Tehran is facing the mixed results of its revolutionary activities.
On the one hand, the Shia militias that the regime patiently cultivated over the years have helped Iran’s allies project power by force, via the ballot box, or both, in fractured societies with dysfunctional governments. This is not just a burden-sharing arrangement reducing the number of Iranian combat fatalities in regional wars. It also brings Tehran’s allies into government offices and secures for the Islamic Republic an overland corridor connecting western Afghanistan in Central Asia, Iran, Iraq, and Syria to Lebanon on the shores of the Mediterranean.
Iran’s regional adversaries have only a limited ability to turn to radical Sunni militias to counter the Islamic Republic’s expansionism, given that many Sunni militants are intent on overthrowing Sunni Arab regimes, including Saudi Arabia. However, the combined forces of the Islamic Republic’s Shia foreign legions and the Russian Air Force seem to have prevailed, at least for the time being.
Yet, on the other hand, the repercussions of Iran’s regional adventures are a source of growing domestic resentment, provoking antiregime protests that target the Islamic Republic’s financial and military support to those same Shia militias. For the time being, the Islamic Republic seems to have suppressed the antigovernment protests, and there is no indication of the regime backing down from its regional ambitions or reducing the support it provides to its Shia foreign legions. This in turn is likely to ignite the next round of antiregime protests, and the very source of the Islamic Republic’s regional power may become a threat to its survival at home.Ali Alfoneh is a nonresident senior fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council.

Notes

1 The exact number of Shia foreign fighters killed in combat in Syria is not known. On March 6, 2017, Hojjat al-Eslam Seyyed Mohammad-Ali Shahidi Mahallati, the director of the Martyr’s Foundation, formally announced that 2,100 Shia foreign fighters had been killed in Syria. This number corresponds fairly well with numbers provided in this essay. “Tedad-e Shohada-ye Modafe-e Haram Elam Shod” [The number of martyred defenders of the shrine was announced], Mashregh News (Tehran) March 6, 2017, available in Persian at: goo.gl/tPbrBR (accessed January 15, 2018).